Baby at Burger King- do I live in a bubble?

[Howshat]

We live in the countryside. Took DC to the city today and had lunch at Burger King. There was a couple there with their baby, about 8 or 9 months old. Not walking. She was sitting in a high chair and had a phone in front of her. She was mainly ignoring it and looking around at the people in the restaurant.

Their food came and the parents fed her a burger, chips and apple juice, with the phone still in front of her.

I‘m happy to accept that I live in a bubble. But I‘ve never seen anything like this before and was very shocked. This was a baby, not a toddler.

Is this a normal thing nowadays?

not normal

under the age of 1, you avoid salt, sugary drinks, junk

i wouldn’t have given my baby anything much more than puréed food and vegetables, tosst, scrambled egg

Plenty of shitty parents in the countryside too.
FWIW I live about 2miles from a town where the Burger King shut last year through lack of trade !

The salt is my main concern, too but some younger parents I’ve met through younger relatives don’t seem to know it’s potentially quite harmful to babies. We were told as routine by our HV many years ago, though we knew already, not to add any salt at all to food for babies under one.

The salt avoidance isn't given as prominently as advice any more. I remember when DS1 was little it was emphasised massively, especially if you were doing BLW which was just getting popular at the time.

My understanding is that it's a combination of they realised it wasn't as dramatic of a risk as previously thought, and that the focus is now on identifying allergies which can be much more dangerous if not identified.

TBF I do remember counting salt very carefully over those first 6 months of weaning but DS very rarely got close to the limit, because they don't eat huge amounts when they first start out. We all in our NCT group bought carefully chosen low salt stock cubes etc but when I calculated the amount of salt in a baby sized portion of spag bol or whatever it made absolutely no difference what stock cube you had used because there was such a small amount of that one stock cube in the final portion size. So I relaxed with the younger DC.

My babies had books, rattles and toys. We played eye spy, counted things and identified colours. They got older so it was books, cards, colouring in. Chatted and looked around. No need for screens.

Baby Led Weaning is the way to go

Best of luck finding that! You may need a Time Machine 🤣

Im more horrified by all the posters defending this. It’s not about being perfect parent! I mean, if you think NOT giving a BABY a smart phone and fast food is unattainable parenting how fucking low is your bar??
Do people realise that smart phones have only existed for 18 years? How do you think parents managed to distract or entertain their children prior to that? I can assure you we did manage..
I was a lone parent, im working class and I was poor. I would never have done this, and if you do you are a shit parent, and I don’t care how defensive that makes you.

I don't do this, but I take exception to people calling others a "shit parent" when they know nothing about them except them being in the SAME restaurant as them with their own kids and a phone being NEAR a baby whilst the parent was engaging with said baby and the baby wasn't even looking at the phone. Because that's the reality of this post.

That's the point people are defensive over. OP has said mum was chatting to, laughing with and otherwise being attentive to the baby, the phone just happened to be there. For all we know, the phone may have been there for a video call with someone and they let the baby be the "star". My family are 200 miles away and you better believe if they video they want DD on screen not us. She doesn't sit with a phone in front of her to eat but we absolutely utilise the tools we have for connecting with family.

Don't judge. That's the point.

And once again, stop focusing on the one particular incident and discuss the much more important point of parents who don't know or dont care enough to not do this all the time..of which there are plenty. "Don't judge" is fine if you mean don't say anything to that particular parent as a random stranger but can quickly become "why didn't SS step in when a child has been neglected or abused". When does "parenting choice" cross the line to a point we absolutely SHOULD judge, if we are in a position to know the full picture?

Not usual for us, but we have done it, particularly when travelling and we need to stop somewhere for quick eats, in a warm, dry, safe environment with toilets and parking. I prefer M 😌 but the effect is similar. We don't have screen time unless he requests it or is particularly zingy.

He's not keen on burgers but likes chips and salad with a bottle of water, occasionally the chicken selects but thinks the nuggets are rubbish, hes 😁 3.

That's not what OP posted about though. She posted about an isolated incident she saw and tried to make out she was shocked because she's an innocent country bumpkin who doesn't know the ways of the new, technological and fast food obsessed world (but was able to quickly post on MN via her own phone, after feeding her own children BK).

We should also be discussing why we feel it's necessary to immediately online shame parents for things they do we know nothing about. 18 years ago (same time frame as smart phones have existed for), people wouldn't see someone do something they deem inappropriate and then immediately jump online to anonymously express their outrage at a stranger they'll never see again. They'd mention it to their family, if they remembered when they saw it, and carry on with their lives. At what point have we gone too far into the online world ourselves?

What's the point of judging this family though? Even if it wasn't an isolated incident, how would we know?Are we supposed to go up to parents and challenging them about daring to be in a fast food place? Good luck with that.
If we're not going to do that then what good does judgement do?

Couldn't edit my post, but I'm a shit parent for taking my child on long trips where eating out becomes essential and entertaining your kids for 10 minutes while you eat before taking them to the playground again is neccessary.

Yes and you can buy them something better than burger King and entertain them better than a screen

My parents live 200 miles away. DD and I often travel to them for a weekend. She's 4. She is excellent in the car these days but it's still a long stretch of sitting. So I am also the shit parent that will get her a popcorn chicken from KFC with some chips (I would do Mc or BK if she preferred a burger but she doesn't) and might let her watch ten minutes of something if it's raining outside or the services don't have an indoor play area for her. (I aim for one of two specific services to break the journey up, one of which has an indoor play area and the other has a fantastic outdoor one, but motorway traffic is unpredictable, as is the bladder if a 4 year old). So I can have a ten minute mental break before driving whilst playing I Spy and guessing the car bonnet repeatedly for another couple of hours.

Day to day, she has limited screen time and eats what I cook. But as good a cook as I'm told I am, options for that, which she'll also eat, are limited in the car/services. And what's the harm in a road trip treat that makes her happy?

It’s crap parenting and there is no excuse.

Yes but we're 12 pages in so maybe we could move the discussion on to the more general point and away from "snapshot" .

Got a fab life thanks and great kids. If you think it’s not crap then that’s up to you. The fact you need to comment in the way you have says a lot.

Giving juice to an 8 month old is fairly bad, I mean, if you re expecting them to have teeth that aren't rotten.

Why are people talking about 3 or 4 year olds being given fast food? The OP was about a baby!
I still wouldn’t put a phone or a tablet in front of a 4 year old, but like I said, people managed their kids without them in very recent memory!

I have never understood this mantra on MN re “don’t judge”. Why not? Who is being harmed by OP’s post? On the off chance the parents of the baby is here, or some readers have done/are inclined to feed their 9mo babies fast food in front of a screen - what’s the harm in reading that other randoms find this horrifying behavior because it’s so bad for a baby? I think I need this explained to me in words of one syllable because so, so many people say it and it only ever is said when people are trying to defend the indefensible. Some people ARE shitty parents. Some people DO indulge in shitty parenting. Giving your 9mo baby Burger King when plonked in a high chair in front of a phone IS shitty parenting. It’s a shit thing to do to your baby. I mean it’s better than starvation (although there’s no excuse for the phone), but at 9mo a baby could easily go a whole day with breast milk or formula. So if you don’t have either of those things with you when out with said baby: that’s shitty parenting. Literally forgetting your child’s food. Yes, yes, it’s just a snapshot and doesn’t show a whole picture of otherwise normal parents blah blah. We’re not stupid, everyone knows this. Posts are about specific incidents that prompt them. And we ALL know that there are some immensely damaging and stupid and unthinking (but probably very loving) parents out there. We know this from real life. So why not judge on an anonymous Internet forum?

What good is it doing anyone to spout hate about strangers who may have had any number of reasons to be doing what they're doing wherever they're doing it.

Are you seriously telling me you've never once gone out with your child, opened your bag and realised you've left nappies, wipes, toys, water, the bottle or anything at home by accident? Or that something has spilled? Or spoiled? Have you never dropped anything? Or handed the last snack to your baby only to have them fling it on the floor?

OP has said that the phone was there but mum was engaging delightfully with baby. Could have been a video call, you've never had one of those? Could have been that baby had been screeching for ages and one daft video broke through that.

It doesn't help anyone in real life to have judgy, hateful things said about them on an anonymous forum. All it does is make people feel bad.

It’s not “hate”! Nothing I read in the OP was strong enough to rise to the level of hate. Per my message below, yes we all know this could have been a one-off - but we also all know it might not have been and frankly given all the statistics we read and hear about re childhood obesity and diabetes, precocious puberty, poor focus on schools etc, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say this is just as likely to be uneducated or unthinking parents than an emergency. It’s not hateful to say this. (Also how can a person direct hate at an unknown person on an annonymous Internet forum?! How is that possible?).

Would it be “spouting hate” to come onto MN and express shock and horror at seeing a parent give their 9yo a cigarette? Or a can of cider? Or to see a parent lose their rag and whack their kid around the head? One solitary Burger King at 9mo isn’t as heinous as those things - but it’s also not nothing. There could be reasonable explanations for all of these things, but it’s just as likely that there aren’t.

And yes it might well help people reading this thread and recognizing themselves in it to know - even from a stranger - that this isn’t good parenting. Plan better. Make sure you don’t give your baby junk food. Yes emergencies arise blah blah, yes it could have been a video call - the point the OP is making is that it might not have been an emergency or a video call, and we all know from our real lives that this is entirely feasible.

The outrage over “judging” far exceeds the outrage over the terrible parenting itself. It’s like a teenager shirking responsibility for their actions and deflecting blame onto something/one else. And it’s all over this forum, all the time.